Job-focused economic blueprint of new govt seen to cut poverty

THE economic blueprint of the Marcos administration will focus on jobs to grow the economy by as much as 8 percent and slash poverty incidence to a single-digit, according to the country’s new Socioeconomic Planning Secretary.

In a virtual interview on Wednesday, National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Director General Arsenio M. Balisacan told BUSINESSMIRROR that addressing job quantity and quality will be the primary focus of the country’s next medium term socioeconomic blueprint.

Balisacan said the target for the medium term is to grow the economy between 6.5 and 8 percent, as well as post a growth of 6.5 to 7.5 percent this year and reduce poverty to around 9 percent by 2028.

ese will be anchored on the ability to create jobs for Filipinos.

“e medium-term plan will focus on jobs, that’s what the President wants, to focus on the creation of jobs. We are not just concerned about the quantity of jobs but more importantly the quality of jobs and the resiliency of those jobs. Growing jobs, improving the quality of jobs and greening the jobs is making those jobs resilient to shocks like pandemics or climate change,” Balisacan explained.

e creation of more jobs is also part of Balisacan’s advocacy of attaining an inclusive economy. If more quality and resilient jobs are created, more Filipinos will have a source of income and may even help retain the country’s skilled labor or those wanting to go abroad to find better economic opportunities.

“I think [it would be] a greenblue [colored PDP]. e resiliency thing is always associated with green but sometimes the green, say green technology, is often associated with advanced countries, that’s not what we should go for. [We should go for] technologies that are efficient, cost effective, and address our immediate needs. [Why blue?] at’s my favorite color,” Balisacan said.

Apart from the focus of the PDP, Balisacan said, the new administration will fast-track the release of the blueprint in order to guide departments on where they should prioritize their programs. e target is for the creation of a new blueprint by year end.

Balisacan said the PDP timeline is: signed by the President by the end of the year and distributed to Congress and the respective Implementing Agencies and stakeholders by the start of 2023. is, however, will drastically change the calendar for the PDP.

In the first two weeks in office of the new administration, Balisacan hopes to already get the “bare bones” of the PDP so NEDA can produce the blueprint before 2023.

e new PDP will be for the years 2023 to 2028.

“We will organize the system differently this time so that we will be able to make the development of the PDP dynamic, the agencies involved in the PDP will already know what to expect from the very start. Hence, before they launch their ships to the ocean, they should already have those elements so that when they announce their priorities, announce their strategies, these should already be consistent with that blueprint,” Balisacan said.